Okay, I hope I can be forgiven if this passes as heresy but I thought I might share my rifle/firearms ideas. I've played with the traditional 1d6+1 rule for rifles and I honestly didn't like it that well, so I thought I might post some ideas here that I've been using lately. I've gone back and forth between the rulebook ideas and my own in an attempt to compare them, but I would appreciate any feedback from anyone else willing to test these ideas. Also, this system is primarily for rifle or perhaps machine guns. Also note that I don't have CP yet for the weapons because I haven't figured it out yet and I don't think many people use them.

Basically, I've grouped rifles into four main categories depending on several qualities that I will explain later on. I've also given examples of what types of weapons and what calibers one might find in this category. Feel free to give suggestions on examples as well. On another note, caliber alone does not affect the weapon's category. Both an M16 and AK-47 are classified as rifles because, although their calibers are very different, they are similar in many other ways. A weapon that shoots a 5.56x45 bullet but has a longer barrel length can classify as a rifle, as the increased length can actually lead to greater bullet velocity and damage.1. Small Rifles (Carbines)2. Rifles3. Heavy Rifles (High-Powered)4. Anti-Material

1. Small RiflesThis idea uses the traditional rifle template. Small rifles are meant to be cheap, mobile, and serve as a back up for heavier gear or as a close-range substitute for a shotgun. Although they are small, small rifles can mount attachments. Also, I place most submachine guns that aren't pistol-sized in this category, and most bullpup weapons may find themselves in this category.DAM: 1d6+1RNG: 10"UR: 3 (5 automatic)Sample Calibers: 5.45x39mm, 5.56x45mm, 69.5x55mmSample Weapons: AK-74M, M4A1 Carbine, G36c, FN F2000, SA80, MP5A5, FN P90, OTs-14 'Groza', Steyr AUG, AKS-74u, MP40, Thompson SMG, PPSH, M1A1 Carbine, VSK-94

2. RiflesThis idea uses the ideas from Brikwars 2001 for rifles. These weapons are what you would expect to find in the hands of most soldiers, and serve as standard-issue firearms. Also note that some rifles in this category may fire smaller bullets, but their larger size than most carbines means that they have greater power and range.DAM: 1d6+2RNG: 12"UR: 3 (5 automatic)Sample Calibers: 7.62x39mm, 7.62x51mm, 7.62x54mmR, 69.8x43mmSample Weapons: M16A4, AK-47, G36K, SIG 556, SCAR-17, AN-94, G3A3, FN FAL, STG44, M1 Garand, SVT-40, VSS Vintorez, Walther 2000, M14

3. Heavy RiflesThis category is based on the 1d8+1 idea I saw for Brikwars 2010. This category includes weapons that tend to fire rounds between the .308 and similar rounds, but are below anti-material grade calibers in terms of firepower. These typically include powerful bolt-action weapons, but can also extend to most sniper rifles that are in use today.DAM: 1d8+1RNG: 16"UR: 3 (no automatic)Sample Calibers: .30-06, 30-40 Krag, 7.92x57mm Mauser, .300 Winchester MagnumSample Weapons: Mosin-Nagant, Kar98k, PSG-1, M1903 Springfield, M21, M40A3, Dragunov SVD, M110 SASS

4. Anti-MaterialThese are the largest rifles a minifig can carry and use on their own, and are classified as Size 2, so all the restrictions of size 2 apply. The minifig needs to properly aim and use a bipod or some form of support to effectively use these. Anti-Material Rifles are capable of downing armored infantry and can be used to deliver a good amount of damage to light vehicles. DAM: 2d6RNG: 20"UR: 4 (no automatic)Sample Calibers: .50 BMG, .338 Lapua Magnum, 14.5x114mmSample Weapons: M82A3, PTRD, Remington MSR, McMillan TAC-50

So, there you have it. I prefer diversity in my weapons, and I think I have some good ideas, but I'm open to suggestions/questions. Enjoy.

Ben-Jammin wrote:3. Heavy RiflesThis category is based on the 1d8+1 idea I saw for Brikwars 2010. This category includes weapons that tend to fire rounds between the .308 and similar rounds, but are below anti-material grade calibers in terms of firepower. These typically include powerful bolt-action weapons, but can also extend to most sniper rifles that are in use today.DAM: 1d8+1RNG: 16"UR: 3 (no automatic)Sample Calibers: .30-06, 30-40 Krag, 7.92x57mm Mauser, .300 Winchester MagnumSample Weapons: Mosin-Nagant, Kar98k, PSG-1, M1903 Springfield, M21, M40A3, Dragunov SVD, M110 SASS

My first suggestion is to change this one to DAM: 2d6-1 to make it more appropriately effective against targets wearing body armor (and because d8s are traditionally for arc fire).

Overall, these look all right but the RNG ramps up pretty sharply compared to the rest of the weapons in the game. It'll be tough to make 5" maneuvering relevant in a game where standard troops have 16" range weapons.

I agree - 12" seems like a pretty good estimate for line-of-sight, so anything past that should require setting up a scope or some other dedicated weapons platform.

You might also want to bump the anti-mat. guns to 1d12 if you give the heavy guns 2d6-1. A heavy rifle should be able to punch through armor, but an anti-mat rifle should be able to ANNIHILATE armored infantry/light vehicles. The current rules are just a size 2 weapon with an increased range, which is boring. So i guess the suggestion would be something like Use: 4/5, Rng: 12" Dmg: 1d12, and just leave it size one.

Counting standard brikwars rifles as the smallest kind is actually a good way to go about setting up a rifle-system - i kept trying and failing to come up with an SMG placeholder for worse guns, because worse guns suck. Making everything else bigger and better is a good way to go about it, but it's also really hard to get something to scale up damage to the point where it's not even worth it to attempt to roll the damage because insta-kill.

IVhorseman wrote:You might also want to bump the anti-mat. guns to 1d12 if you give the heavy guns 2d6-1. A heavy rifle should be able to punch through armor, but an anti-mat rifle should be able to ANNIHILATE armored infantry/light vehicles. The current rules are just a size 2 weapon with an increased range, which is boring. So i guess the suggestion would be something like Use: 4/5, Rng: 12" Dmg: 1d12, and just leave it size one.

Question: If I remember right, the 1d12 ignores the armored ability correct? If not, I could just say that they ignore 1 armored rating (so an armored trooper would be screwed, but and armored trooper with a shield might have a chance).

The 2d6-1 idea sounds good; wouldn't that statistically have an average near 1d8+2? I suck at statistics so I'll leave it up to you.

IVhorseman wrote:Counting standard brikwars rifles as the smallest kind is actually a good way to go about setting up a rifle-system - i kept trying and failing to come up with an SMG placeholder for worse guns, because worse guns suck. Making everything else bigger and better is a good way to go about it, but it's also really hard to get something to scale up damage to the point where it's not even worth it to attempt to roll the damage because insta-kill.

Well, the way I see it is that if you hit a person with a .50 cal or greater then it pretty much is an insta-kill anyway. Even if it doesn't kill the person outright that half-inch hole you just put in them will leave them out of commision for a while. Of course, I want to make it to where it takes a while to set up and get a good shot with a really big gun so that people won't abuse it with such tomfoolery as 360-no-scopes (although that would be a nice heroic feat for a prepubescent whining gamer hero).

I could just apply the 12" range to heavy and anti-material rifles as well, and just equip most of them with scopes to increase the range. I was also trying to keep WWII units in mind, where heavy rifles were common place but not all of them used scopes. Lowering the range to 12" could be a good idea.

IVhorseman wrote:What about Heavy Machineguns?

Although I based the system mainly for rifles, they could apply to machine guns as well, since machine guns are basically rifles with massive ammo banks and designed for autofire. Personally, I think that a heavy machine gun should do the same damage as a heavy or anti-material rifle (.308 and .50 are common heavy machine gun calibers, like with an M60E4 or a Browning). They could have the same range as a rifle, but fire exclusively in autofire mode. To compensate for this, the UR could be raised or lowered accordingly. I think a UR of 4 or 5 in autofire sounds fair. Additionally, the increased recoil from firing full-auto means that they are best used as suppressive fire weapons, and so a minifig should need a way to brace or support the gun by using a bipod, a grip, a tripod, or some other form of support for his big-ass machine gun.

See the only problem with that is the armor piercing - while that's awesome on a single-fire gun, big-ass machineguns dealing 2 dice of damage as a size 1 gun is pretty damn OP.

Using a size 2 machinegun as a starting point for what represents a stationary heavy MG placement, smaller ones should a) do less damage, and b) be pretty much ignorable by minifigs in heavy armor. Before, I've mentioned giving heavy MGs a bonus d8-(range") damage ON TOP OF the normal autogun damage. At close ranges this is about as good as a size 2 gun, but farther out means it's worse. It also forces the firing to be in a cone, and since it's different dice for damage (d6+d8), armored figs can all but ignore them. It's the snipers they're supposed to be keeping their eyes out for. The downside is that you get big complicated damage formulas like 1d6+1d8+1-(range"), which is no fun for anyone.

Allowing heavy MGs to set up suppressive fire is another way to handle this: basically it's the above, except instead of always dishing out that much damage, a heavy machinegunner could choose to "deploy" what is effectively a hazard zone in front of the heavy machinegun, where ANY figs who walk into the cone take 1d8-(range") damage until the gunner runs out of ammo or chooses to stop, whichever comes first.

IVhorseman wrote:See the only problem with that is the armor piercing - while that's awesome on a single-fire gun, big-ass machineguns dealing 2 dice of damage as a size 1 gun is pretty damn OP.

Using a size 2 machinegun as a starting point for what represents a stationary heavy MG placement, smaller ones should a) do less damage, and b) be pretty much ignorable by minifigs in heavy armor. Before, I've mentioned giving heavy MGs a bonus d8-(range") damage ON TOP OF the normal autogun damage. At close ranges this is about as good as a size 2 gun, but farther out means it's worse. It also forces the firing to be in a cone, and since it's different dice for damage (d6+d8), armored figs can all but ignore them. It's the snipers they're supposed to be keeping their eyes out for. The downside is that you get big complicated damage formulas like 1d6+1d8+1-(range"), which is no fun for anyone.

Allowing heavy MGs to set up suppressive fire is another way to handle this: basically it's the above, except instead of always dishing out that much damage, a heavy machinegunner could choose to "deploy" what is effectively a hazard zone in front of the heavy machinegun, where ANY figs who walk into the cone take 1d8-(range") damage until the gunner runs out of ammo or chooses to stop, whichever comes first.

That sounds like a better idea than mine. When it came to machine guns, I was thinking somewhat along the lines of the rifles, but with only three categories:1. Light2. Medium3. Heavy

Medium are larger caliber, but can still be carried and utilized by a single minifig:DAM: 1d6+2RNG: 12"UR: 5 (autofire only)

Heavy are the really big machine guns that can't be effectively wielded by a minifig without the Compensating specialty; they are size two:DAM: 2d6RNG: 12"UR: 5 (autofire only)

I think it sounds better because armored minifigs will only have to worry if they're facing Heavies and the size restrictions of the HMG itself will limit its usefulness unless its on a vehicle or something.

Yeah, but we're forgetting about LMGs - something that's still size one and has all the mobility associated with it, but still pumps out lots and lots of suppression fire.

Right now, your descriptions seem to follow SMGs, Assault Rifles, then skip directly over to the size 2 MG emplacements. You probably don't need to increase the URs either, since more variation = less memorable.

Well, there are some LMGs that use smaller calibers such as 5.56mm, an M249 is an example. But since such weapons are usually the length of a good rifle at least, then perhaps I could just cut out the light machine gun idea and keep the medium and heavy ones, as a larger weapon like an M249 is likely comparable to an M16 in terms of firepower. So, here's my thinking: